Easy, quick, vegan mini cupcakes

It's been a while since  I made cupcakes, and had volunteered to make them for a kiddies Christmas party. As most of the children very toddlers, I decided mini cupcakes would be the best option, as they are sweet little bites, that won't get too messy, and the 'grown-ups' can just pop them in their mouth (if they want to!).
I used a recipe from a leaflet that I had picked up from a Viva Roadshow Fair, modifying the ingredients slightly.
Recipe for the cakes:
180g plain flour
half tsp bicarbonate soda
half tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
60ml sunflower oil
200ml sweetened soya milk
150g unrefined granulated sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
Juice of one whole lemon
Zest finely grated from one whole lemon.

I used a handheld whisk for the mixing.
Preheat the oven on a low heat (gas mark 3-4/ around 180C).
Set out a mini cupcake tray, and place your mini cupcake liners in the tray. The above recipe makes about 48 mini cupcakes, so if you only want a small amount, half the recipe, or make larger cakes, as each cupcake paper only takes about a teaspoon of the mixture (these are mini after all!).
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
In a seperate bowl whisk together the oil, milk, lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar for about a minute, until the liquid mix becomes frothy.
Add the liquid mix to the dry ingredients, bit by bit until it's all in the one bowl, and mixed together to make a loose mix, that will plop into the cupcake liners easily.
Fill each cupcake liner about 3/4 full, allowing space for them to rise. I used a dessert spoon and a teaspoon for this.
Put in the middle shelf of the over, and allow to bake for about 10-15 mins, using a wooden skewer to test if the mixture is baked, by sticking the skewer into the centre of a cupcake, and checking if it comes out clean - if it does, they're baked, if it comes out sticky, they need a bit more time. They will look quite pale, but they are baked if the skewer comes out clean.
Let them cool on a wire rack, while you prepare the topping.

Recipe for the topping:
62g vegan margarine
62g vegetable shortening, such as Trex
500g icing sugar (sifted)
2 tsp vanilla essence
30ml sweetened soya milk

As with the cake ingredients, half the mixture to make a smaller amount.
Sift the sugar into a mixing bowl, add the other ingredients, and use a handheld mixer, to mix the ingredients into a fluffy cake topping. Make sure the cakes are cool. Use an icing syringe to decorate the cakes with the topping.

Here is a photo of the cupcakes, which were enjoyed by the children and adults alike!

Vegan cupcakes - new finds for decoration.

When I make cupcakes, I use my favourite cupcake book " Vegan cupcakes Take over the World". Their basic vanilla cupcake, or chocolate cupcake recipe works every time, and is easy to follow. The cupcakes are a little too sweet for me, so I need to try adjusting the sugar to taste, also the topping seems like a very large amount, so I tend to half the ingredients suggested for the topping.
While browsing the baking section of my local Wilkinson and The Range stores, I came across some cake decorating foodstuff that were labelled 'vegan'. I always have to try things labelled vegan, it seems like my duty, that if a company has gone to the effort to make and label vegan products, I can at least try them! So, there they were, amongst non-vegan items: Sprinkles labelled vegan, and colouring labelled vegan. Not all the products were vegan suitable, so my choices were limited, but here are the ones I bought:

Kylie and Georgina's Cake Sprinkles
and PME food colouring.
Both labelled 'vegan'.

The resulting cupcakes. Hmmmm, maybe 'yellow' was not the right colour for these, but they were tasty, and looked adorable.
PME do a whole range of colours, and it's easy to pick out the vegan suitable colours as they are labelled vegan.
Perfect excuse to make cupcakes, and I can't wait for my next 'find' to try out some more decorations!